he spoke to the service members and employees at the pentagon. hagel said he was honored to be the new defense secretary and that the pentagon does have a tough road ahead of it including dealing with sequestration. >> we need to deal with this reality. we've got ahead of us a lot of challenges. they are going to define much of who we are. not this institution only but our country. >> meantime, we do have major developments on the sequester issue today. the white house is saying that president obama will hold a meeting on friday with top congressional leaders on both sides including speaker boehner, nancy pelosi, harry reid, and mitch mcconnell. you would think maybe he could grab them on the side of the rosa parks statue right now and bring this up. they're all together. so it's the first time in years, though, this year that the president has a face-to-face meeting with republican leaders where they will directly discuss sequestration. i say again he's right there. this is a good moment. they're all applauding. why not talk about it now? we bri